Our original plan was to just hike Eisenhower today. We went up Crawford path to Mt. Pierce, this was very familiar from our previous hike last month, except this time the temps were much milder. Probably around 30 degrees higher today than the last time we hiked. The trail was pretty buffed out making it fast with consistent footing. It was actually much easier than during the summer where you need to look out for rocks and roots etc... We made it to the summit of Eisenhower and I made the pitch to Pete to continue on to Monroe, another 2 miles away. I figured since my knees weren't hurting yet, that I could make it the extra 4 miles, and since we were so close we might as well do it. Days this nice don't happen all the time in the winter.
Well, things always seems to look closer than they really are, and this was the case with Mt. Monroe. It was a long 4 miles to say the least and especially since I didn't have crampons and everything was covered in a layer of ice. Pete got to bust out his new crampons and I wished I had a pair. I did order some, so the next hike should be a little easier with them. We snapped the obligatory summit photos and made our way back down to the parking lot. We had to walk 2 miles on the snow mobile trail once we got to the base to get back to my car and I fell on the ice no less than 3 times, once I almost slide off the road and into the drainage ditch, luckily I found a bamboo walking stick that somebody left and used that to stop my slide. I think we figured it out to be a total 13.5 miles which we did in 7 hours and 15 mins.
Well, things always seems to look closer than they really are, and this was the case with Mt. Monroe. It was a long 4 miles to say the least and especially since I didn't have crampons and everything was covered in a layer of ice. Pete got to bust out his new crampons and I wished I had a pair. I did order some, so the next hike should be a little easier with them. We snapped the obligatory summit photos and made our way back down to the parking lot. We had to walk 2 miles on the snow mobile trail once we got to the base to get back to my car and I fell on the ice no less than 3 times, once I almost slide off the road and into the drainage ditch, luckily I found a bamboo walking stick that somebody left and used that to stop my slide. I think we figured it out to be a total 13.5 miles which we did in 7 hours and 15 mins.
